STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN January 2017 Los Angeles PDF
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STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN January 2017 Los Angeles Regional Strong Workforce Program 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM Table of Contents Executive Summary........................................................................................................................3 Introduction....................................................................................................................................4 Regional Overview..........................................................................................................................5 Partner Engagement and Planning Processes................................................................................8 Regional MOUs with WDBs........................................................................................................9 Regional Planning Summit........................................................................................................11 SWP Planning Forum................................................................................................................12 LAOCRC Engagement Process...................................................................................................13 Regional Labor Market Data and Analysis....................................................................................15 Los Angeles Region Assets and Investments................................................................................21 Strategic Priorities for the Los Angeles Region.............................................................................24 Priority and Emerging Industry Sectors....................................................................................25 Career Pathways.......................................................................................................................27 Work-‐based Learning...............................................................................................................29 Faculty Professional Development and Externships ....................................................................30 Sustained Industry Engagement...................................................................................................30 Data-‐driven Coordination.............................................................................................................32 Regional Outcomes and Metrics..................................................................................................32 Local Share SWP Activities............................................................................................................34 Continued Engagement Strategies...............................................................................................37 Appendix A: Los Angeles County Community Colleges................................................................39 Appendix B: Los Angeles County CTE Programs...........................................................................40 Appendix C: Regional SWP Projects.............................................................................................43 Appendix D: Regional Economic Development and Workforce Collaboratives...........................53 2 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM Executive Summary Due to the unique characteristics of Los Angeles County and Orange County, the Los Angeles/Orange County Regional Consortium decided to develop separate plans for each county to meet the goals of the Strong Workforce Program. The Los Angeles region is home to 10 community college districts with 19 colleges and nearly 300,000 community college students. The region has seven workforce development boards, more than 40 adult education providers and more than 60 school districts. The planning process included several key planning events, such as a two-‐day partnership summit hosted by the Los Angeles Area Workforce Collaborative in August and a Strong Workforce Program Planning Forum held in December. The Los Angeles/Orange County Region Center of Excellence, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, County of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board, Deputy Sector Navigators (DSNs), industry and workforce partners, and K-‐12 school districts and adult education providers were among the key groups who participated in the planning process. The following report includes an overview of the region’s nine sectors identified through the Doing What Matters Initiative: Advanced Manufacturing and Advanced Technology; Advanced Transportation and Renewable Energy; Energy, Construction and Utilities; Global Trade and Logistics; Health Care; Information & Communications Technology (ICT)/Digital Media; Life Sciences and Biotechnology; Retail, Hospitality and Tourism; and Small Business. Through a collaborative vetting process, 22 regional projects were agreed upon, out of an initial 66 proposed projects. These projects are detailed more fully in the report. Examples of selected projects include a $2.5 million project across all 19 community colleges to provide technical assistance and staffing that would continue the work of the SB 1070 Career Pathways Grant and a $1.2 million project across all colleges for the CTE Regional Internship & Jobs Academy. The planning process also resulted in a number of recommendations regarding emerging and priority sectors to improve regional planning and project implementation: • Convert Energy, Construction and Utilities from an emerging sector to a priority sector. • Add Life Sciences/Biotechnology as an emerging sector. • Add Entertainment as a priority sector (specific to Los Angeles County) or split ICT/Digital Media and provide a DSN for ICT and a second DSN for Digital Media, which would fill the gap for Entertainment. 3 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM Introduction Over the past five months, formal planning has involved the administrators and faculty of the 28 colleges comprising the Los Angeles/Orange County Regional Consortia (LAOCRC). Members of the consortia have worked diligently to develop a plan in response to the needs of the region and the legislative intent of the Strong Workforce Program. More than a year ago, in anticipation of the Strong Workforce Program legislation, informal planning and extensive discussions spanning a diverse range of partners were initiated. In recognition of the size of our economies and the unique needs of Los Angeles County and Orange County, separate plans were developed for each county to meet the goals of the Strong Workforce Program. In preparing this report, Los Angeles members of the LAOCRC consulted with the region’s deputy sector navigators, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce (LAACC), the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board, K-‐12 school districts, adult education providers, business and industry partners, and many others. The following document was written, vetted and unanimously approved by voting members of the community colleges in Los Angeles County. All colleges have agreed that the Los Angeles Regional SWP Plan will be implemented by all 19 colleges. It comprises 22 projects, which collectively address nearly all of the 25 Strong Workforce Program recommendations and strategic priorities of the region. Given time limitations and systemic changes in the governance structure of the LAOCRC, the Los Angeles Region did not develop, in advance of this process, a formal strategic plan that outlines the regional priorities. However, based on the content of discussions held at various meetings, and predominantly on the content of the selected projects, some common themes, recommendations and strategies emerged. These include: 1. Maximizing sustained industry engagement; 2. Strengthening career pathways and programs of study; 3. Expanding opportunities for work-‐based learning; 4. Attending to the need for new Career Technical Education (CTE) faculty recruitment and professional development and externships for current faculty; 5. Addressing the needs of business and industry in identified priority and emerging sectors; and 4 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM 6. Supporting regional marketing, curriculum alignment, streamlined regional processes as well as regional labor market data collection and analysis for data-‐informed decision making. Regional Overview With more than 10 million residents, Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the nation. The workforce development system in the Los Angeles Region includes 10 community college districts with 19 colleges, seven workforce development boards, more than 40 adult education providers and more than 60 school districts that serve residents in 85 of the county’s 88 cities. With nearly 300,000 full-‐time equivalent students (FTES), the region accounts for just under one-‐third of the state’s community college students. Los Angeles Community College District, is the region’s largest district with nine community colleges, serving more than 135,000 students. (See Appendix A for a complete list of districts, community colleges and enrollment in the region.) The Los Angeles Region’s largest community colleges happen to be some of the largest community colleges in the state. These include Mt. San Antonio College (30,654 FTES), East Los Angeles College (23,345 FTES) and Pasadena City College (22,984 FTES). A majority of the community colleges in the region have enrollments between 10,000 and 20,000 students, while a number of other campuses offer smaller scale, more intimate learning environments, such as El Camino College-‐Compton Center (5,217 FTES) and Los Angeles Southwest College (5,428 FTES). In Los Angeles County, students can enroll in hundreds of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs offered by the 19 community colleges in 10 community college districts. Accounting, business management, marketing and distribution, office technology and child development CTE programs are offered by all community colleges in the region. (A detailed list of CTE programs in the region is included in Appendix B.) Additionally, Los Angeles County community colleges offer short-‐term training programs that align with third-‐party credentialing requirements, apprenticeships and incumbent worker trainings to update skill sets in a variety of industry sectors. Figure 1 compares overall enrollment to CTE enrollment for the 10 community college districts in the region. 5 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM Figure 1. Overall and CTE Enrollment for Los Angeles County Community College Districts District Overall Enrollment CTE Enrollment Cerritos 32,666 17,950 Citrus 19,627 8,403 El Camino 32,690 13,680 Glendale 28,578 12,503 Long Beach 33,657 17,413 Los Angeles 237,767 109,070 Mt. San Antonio 61,286 23,998 Pasadena Area 41,950 17,662 Rio Hondo 31,603 19,052 Santa Monica 47,220 19,866 Total 567,044 259,597 Colleges in the region face a number of challenges in preparing students. According to studies by the Milken Institute, JPMorgan Chase and the Centers of Excellence, the supply of middle-‐ skills workers currently being produced is not enough to meet the demand of employers. California, and Los Angeles specifically, must significantly increase the number of workers with industry-‐relevant, middle-‐skill degrees, credentials and certificates. Employers in critical industries from aerospace to advanced manufacturing in the county report it is increasingly difficult to find qualified candidates because workers with the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) are in short supply, creating a skills gap. Many firms have reported looking outside the county to attract the talent necessary for growth or simply to maintain production levels as skilled employees retire. Meanwhile, an unprecedented opportunity exists for middle-‐skill workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The 2013 report “The Hidden STEM Economy” by the Brookings Institution found that “half of all STEM jobs are available to workers without a four-‐year college degree, and these jobs pay $53,000 on average—a wage 10 percent higher than jobs with similar educational requirements.” The study also found that jobs in the manufacturing, health care and construction industries comprise 50 percent of all STEM jobs. Furthermore, in Los Angeles County’s innovation-‐based economy, there is an unmet and growing need to fill middle-‐skill technology jobs that support the work of those with master’s degrees and other advanced degrees. Expanding the region’s STEM talent pool must involve strategies that attract more 6 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM underrepresented students, in particular Latino students, because these students will represent the bulk of California’s working-‐age population in the near future. In the 2016-‐2017 academic year, 74 percent of LAUSD students identified as Latino. Yet, this group is the least likely to obtain a degree and major in STEM. In addition to job growth in STEM fields, the Information, Communications & Technology (ICT) cluster—which includes software development, gaming, virtual reality, design and marketing— is booming in Los Angeles. Regional stakeholders seek to focus on developing human capital through meaningful partnerships that unify educational, business and community organizations and institutions in support of evidence-‐based programs and initiatives. According to the July 2016 Milken Institute report “Career Technical Education: Reducing Wage Inequality and Sustaining California’s Innovation-‐Based Economy,” whether it is at the local, state or national level, high percentages of skilled human capital and sustained investments in education systems drive economic growth. For Los Angeles County, this means that our region’s economic vitality is incomparably linked to the education level of our workforce. While this is not a new concept for professional workforce, education and economic development leaders and policy makers, Los Angeles system leaders have fallen short of aligning the policies and practice required to maintain a well-‐educated workforce with the skills industries require. It is of paramount importance that we begin to reverse a trend which threatens the region’s and the state’s long-‐term economic prosperity and the income-‐earning ability of thousands of residents. The sheer size and complexity of the regional economy of Los Angeles County and its demographics have made the concept of regional coordination unwieldy. Prior to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and the Strong Workforce Program, there were no mandates and very few incentives for leaders of traditionally siloed systems to work together. As part of the Los Angeles regional planning process in recent months, efforts have been successful in engaging workforce, education and economic development leaders across the county. There is a shared understanding that we are largely dependent upon each other and that we must work collaboratively to solve these looming issues. 7 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM Partner Engagement and Planning Processes Multiple research strategies and methods of engagement were employed to determine the economic and regional workforce needs of Los Angeles County, including analyzing available reports, examining supply-‐and-‐demand data and hosting small and large meetings with partners including workforce organizations, industry representatives and intermediaries. Key partners are shown in Exhibit 2. Since 2014, CTE deans have met quarterly with the region’s seven workforce development boards and key Exhibit 2. Key Partners Engaged workforce development system leaders throughout Los Angeles/Orange County the Los Angeles Area Workforce Collaborative, which Region Center of Excellence was jointly established to strengthen coordination, collaboration and alignment of workforce Los Angeles County Economic development education and training between the two Development Corporation major workforce development partners in the region. Los Angeles Area Chamber of Working groups were established to develop shared Commerce goals consistent with the mission and priority County of Los Angeles objectives of the collaborative. Workforce Investment Board Deputy Sector Navigators The mission of the collaborative is to foster a trusting Industry and workforce Los Angeles County regional collaboration focused on partners demand-‐driven workforce and training initiatives by partnering with and aligning workforce development K-‐12 school districts & boards and community colleges through a transparent adult education providers problem-‐solving approach. The collaborative has identified three objectives to guide the process: 1. Training: Identify and remove barriers to training by and with community colleges for workforce development boards (WDBs), including challenges related to contract/cohort training and the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL). 2. Policy: Develop joint funding/partnering strategies and policy recommendations for local, state and federal stakeholders that facilitate systemic partnerships. 3. Data: a) Align countywide regional workforce initiatives based on common economic development data; b) Identify and implement protocols to ensure tracking/sharing of programmatic data; and c) Eliminate duplication in support of shared workforce outcomes. 8 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM The collaborative has strengthened engagement on multiple levels including co-‐chaired meetings following LAOCRC meetings, attendance and co-‐presentations at CCCAOE and CWA conferences, commitments by workforce development boards to provide dedicated funding for summer youth employment and adult program funding for community colleges to develop and provide in-‐demand occupational training in high-‐growth sectors, increasing the number of America’s Job Centers on community college campuses as shared assets, and coordination on the use of common labor market and economic development data for planning, priority setting and industry sector and cluster designation. In addition, the collaborative has served as a forum to increase and improve regional coordination, collaboration and alignment. It has supported the regional planning processes for both the local workforce development boards and the community colleges, including participation by boards and colleges in the many regional convening events by each system to gather stakeholder input and use of common labor market information and economic intelligence reports. A regional forum for more than 100 stakeholders was hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to launch the collaborative. It featured renowned keynote speaker Dr. James Jacobs, president of Macomb Community College in Michigan. His presentation, “A New Era of Regional Partnerships,” provided insights into creating regional industry alignment across workforce and economic development systems. Regional MOUs with WDBs In June 2016, the 10 community college districts representing 19 community colleges in the region signed onto one or more of the seven WDB WIOA Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that were submitted to the California Workforce Development Board in compliance with mandates of WIOA and state law. Community colleges are among the 17 mandated system and institutional partners in the regional workforce development system. The MOUs represent a pledge to co-‐invest and participate in the delivery of employment and training services at one of the region’s 35 America’s Job Centers of California (AJCC), coordinate industry sector analysis and adopt common priority and emerging sectors. They also reflect a commitment to align regional systems of data collection and coordinate the interpretation and analysis of regional data for program design and development as well as strategic decision making, with the aim of enhancing career pathways and the workforce development training offered by community colleges. The MOU commitments reaffirm the shared vision of partners in the region to work together to build an aligned regional workforce development system. Coordination with the WIOA planning process included recognition of 14 common themes from 19 regional forums with nearly 500 participants, including CTE deans, faculty and other representatives from community colleges. The WIOA planning process highlighted several consistencies shared by our systems’ approaches, such as the region’s unique complexity, size and diversity; the need to think and act as a single system; the importance of industry engagement regionally as a system; and the critical importance of internships, job shadowing, work-‐based learning and apprenticeships. Other themes include the importance of understanding economic forces to adequately prepare people for jobs; teaching essential workforce and job readiness skills; emphasizing English language skills; and improving 9 | Page 2017 LOS ANGELES REGIONAL PLAN STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM communication to broadcast how critical these themes are for workforce development. Exhibit 3 shows the education and workforce partners who participated in the regional workforce development planning process. Exhibit 3. Participants in the Regional Workforce Development Planning Process 10 Community Colleges/Ring Colleges Cerritos College Long Beach City College Citrus College Mt. San Antonio College El Camino College Pasadena City College El Camino College-‐Compton Center Rio Hondo College Glendale Community College Santa Monica College Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) East Los Angeles College Los Angeles Southwest College Los Angeles City College Los Angeles Valley College Los Angeles Harbor College Pierce College Los Angeles Mission College West Los Angeles College Los Angeles Trade-‐Technical College Workforce Development Boards City of Los Angeles Workforce Southeast Los Angeles County Development Board Workforce Development Board City of Los Angeles Economic and South Bay Workforce Investment Workforce Development Department Board Los Angeles County Workforce Verdugo Workforce Development Development Board, El Camino Board College Adult Education Providers and Regional AB86 Consortia K-‐12 (Secondary) and Adult Education Los Angeles County Office of Los Angeles City Board of Education Education Regional Industry/Government Partners Los Angeles County Economic San Gabriel Valley Economic Development Corporation Partnership Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Department Los Angeles/Ventura/Central Coast California Department of Region LMID Rehabilitation (DOR) State of California EDD 10 | Page
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